Journey Begins

My Current Progress

Since my last update, I have been busy setting up my controlled systems and getting ready to collect data. To recap, my project involves studying Montipora eating nudibranchs as a pest and examining how different chemical solutions affect both the nudibranchs and the coral. I hope to find a chemical solution that effectively removes or kills the nudibranchs while having minimal effect on the coral's health.

Key Milestones

I finished setting up the controlled system and fully cycled the aquarium. I intended to do this much earlier on but funds and time limited me. As a recap this controlled system includes what most reef aquarium hobbyists use to keep their corals and systems alive and thriving. All filtration and heating systems are located in a separate tank known as the "sump", here a skimmer to remove organic matter, a filter sock to remove particulate matter, heaters to ensure the tank runs at 78 degrees Fahrenheit, and a 500-gallon per hour pump returning water to the main tank are all present. In the main tank where the corals are held, there is a large gyre pump ensuring flow throughout the tank and a large 8-bulb T5 light containing six blue plus bulbs, one actinic bulb, and one 6500k bulb providing proper light to the corals as they are photosynthetic. I intend to take more photos and describe this setup more in-depth in my final paper
I completed cutting up all the intended test corals. This involved gathering many montipora colonies of coral from donations and local hobbyists. I gathered large colonies of Montipora Undata, Montipora Spongodes, and Montipora Aquituberculata. Each of these large corals was cut into many smaller pieces using a band saw. Each cut piece is similar in size and all were glued onto ceramic frag plugs allowing for easy organization and placement onto egg crate.
I gathered all the necessary nudibranchs. My entire experiment is dependent on infecting all my corals with a pest species of nudibranch known to eat the coral (Phestilla Subodiosus). Initially, I struggled to gather enough for a large experiment involving multiple chemical dips. However, after making multiple posts in local groups I managed to gather around 20. This still wasn't enough but after finally getting a large colony of Montipora Capricornis completely covered in these nudibranchs and almost dead I had enough.

Challenges

Most of my challenges have come from time delays, issues with gathering the necessary equipment, and issues with getting the needed livestock and organisms. Setting up the necessary controlled environment came with a few setbacks, the biggest one included a leak that involved over a week of trial and error to fix, in the end, I just used a bunch of silicone do fix a bulkhead to the tank instead of striving for a more elegant solution. In the beginning, I initially planned to gather all my nudibranchs and corals as donations from the Reef Builders studio in Golden CO. I went this route because of their abundance of most organisms I needed and the fact that It would be free. However, in January a car hit their building and they lost over half their livestock including much of what I needed. From this I was forced to seek out corals from local hobbyists and find deals that were within my budget, this took weeks to figure out but in the end, I gathered a large colony of Montipora Spongodes from a reefer in Colorado Springs and was able to still get a few pieces of Montipora Undata from the Reef Builders Studio. My next issue with gathering livestock came from getting the nudibranchs, once again I initially planned to get them from the Reef Builders studio, but after the car crash and more issues in their studio, they lost most of the livestock they had and could no longer supply the amount of nudibranchs I needed. So, I resorted to posting in online groups looking for these nudibranchs, the issue is not a lot of people have these, those who do mostly try and kill them rather than capture and donate them, and I couldn't offer any money for someone to intensively go through their aquarium and capture over thirty nudibranchs. Finally, after multiple weeks and posts put out in February, I was able to find a reefer in Colorado Springs to supply over fifteen nudibranchs and found a Colony of Montipora Capricornis with almost thirty. With all the livestock collected, I reached my final challenge of time constraints, as a high school student I had tests coming up from multiple classes and could not focus on this project. After another two weeks of being limited with the time I can place into my project the date is Feb 27th and I believe I finally have everything needed including time to finally start my official data collection. With the due date of all research quickly approaching I have to use my time wisely and won't be able to collect all the data I initially hoped for.

Photos

all descriptions are for the row of three photos to the side, each subsequent description is for the next row

Cutting and gluing of the Montipora Spongodes colony with a band saw. All cut pieces were glued onto 1" ceramic frag plugs that can easily be organized in egg crate made frag racks

Where the leak stemmed from, the hole in the tank I drilled was chipped and caused the bulkhead to leak and not seal properly. To fix this I used a bunch of silicone and permanently fixed the bulkhead to the tank, it no longer leaks

Bacteria used to cycle the tank included a bottle of PNS Deepcycle, and live rock donated from Battlecorals in Wisconsin. The rock was shipped overnight to me (row is only two photos)

How the light was mounted to the tank, this light is typically hung from the ceiling but due to the weight of the light I did not feel comfortable mounting it this way and instead built a mount out of wood and painted it black, this mount rests on the sides of the tank

Me placing the nudibranchs donated from Colorado Springs into the tank and onto the fragged and cut pieces of Montipora Spongodes. They are very tiny and hard to photograph as I do not have a macro lens or fancy camera

The healf dead piece of Montipora Capricornis containing over thirty nudibranchs, all are located where the flesh(red/orange) meats the dead skeleton(white), they had eaten most of the colony by the time I got it. Once again they are very small and you have to look close.

Reflection

Through my current process, I have learned how much of a factor time is in the research process. Initially, it seemed as though I had all the time I needed, but after multiple setbacks and issues time became one thing I didn't have enough of. As of now I still have to collect most of my data which will only take a day or two at most as it involves dipping the corals and measuring the removal and death rate of the nudibranchs, if I were to have more time hatch rate would also be measured along with the bleaching of the corals. However, I am finally ready to start my actual experiment after finally gathering what I need and having a setup ready to finish the process. This process of research has taught me the importance of a schedule and time within research and not procrastinating, I have also learned that the number of unknowns and outside factors can't be predicted right away but end up contributing to many roadblocks in the process.

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